Baking cookies is a waste of time. Better to just buy them at bakery

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a really odd post. I have no problems with someone buying the cookies/baked goods at a bakery. I love a good bakery as much as the next person. But, to say makes such a broad, sweeping generalization that it's better to buy cookies at the bakery, is just wrong. Sure, it's convenient and you sometimes get specialty cookies that aren't easy to make at home. But, it's also more expensive and a lot of pleasure and rituals can surround the baking of cookies.

I just did a calculation of what a base sugar cookie recipe would cost me - less than $6 for a batch without chocolate chips. You don't have to even use 'good butter'. I didn't include the cost of using the oven because it's just pennies. Nor did I include the cost of mortgage or utensils because those are sunk costs - I'd pay for them whether I made cookies or not. I also didn't include the cost of my time because it wouldn't take me any longer to bake cookies than to run to the store to get them and I'm also avoiding the cost of gas.

^^PP here. I calculated the costs using the prices on Costco's website. I didn't include the cost of salt/soda because the amounts are so small and cheap. I also use the imitation vanilla recommended by America's Test Kitchen and it's just as cheap. It's only pennies that are missing from here and not worth wasting my time to calculate.
1.17 Eggs
0.20 flour
1.67 sugar
2.25 butter
5.28 Total

Imitation vanilla? As if!

I have more confidence in ATK than an anonymous DCUM poster
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/6229-vanilla-extract-vs-imitation-vanilla

ATK is the best. Also, for OP and others who find baking cookies "hit or miss", if you do want to bake them sometimes, I highly recommend getting the ATK Family Baking Book. They really do refine their recipes very carefully and it's about as close as you can get to foolproof baking. The cookbook also has a lot of very useful tips on things like why they recommend certain brands of ingredients or tools, how to know when a bake is ready to come out of the oven, and how to troubleshoot common problems. I definitely don't consider baking cookies remotely risky and my cookies always wind up tasting pretty fantastic.

I'd buy bakery cookies too, if they were excellent and I wanted a treat without the trouble, but yes, homemade is much less expensive and very good.

Oh, and regarding butter, if you think even a high end bakery is using expensive European butter in most of their baked goods, you are insane. They are buying in bulk and while quality matters, butter is one of the THE most expensive ingredients and if you are baking for money, saving money on butter is one of the easiest ways to increase profits. They are not using better butter than you are at home, I guarantee it. They might be using lower quality butter.

[Anonymous]

I bought cookies at the bakery today and when I nibbled on one while waiting in the school pickup line, they were surprisingly burnt. Exterior was too dark brown but not an obvious burnt appearance, so I can see how it could slip by. I called the bakery. They looked, acknowledged they found the overcooked batch, apologized, and said free next time I’m in. Had I burnt a batch at home they’d go in the trash and I’d be out all the costs. Buying at the bakery has no risks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bought cookies at the bakery today and when I nibbled on one while waiting in the school pickup line, they were surprisingly burnt. Exterior was too dark brown but not an obvious burnt appearance, so I can see how it could slip by. I called the bakery. They looked, acknowledged they found the overcooked batch, apologized, and said free next time I’m in. Had I burnt a batch at home they’d go in the trash and I’d be out all the costs. Buying at the bakery has no risks!

Give it a rest already. Enough with the talk about risk, gluttony and clean up. We get it. You like your special bakery cookies. Most of us prefer and are capable of baking our own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:pre slice and bake refrigerated dough - $2.50 on sale at Giant on occasion

Perfect if we want home baked cookies without effort

Most bakeries have gross cookies - reason: they freeze their cookie dough and then bake it months later. Might as well buy a tub of Costco cookies.

I have tried every chocolate chip cookie everywhere. Most are too sweet or have something I don't like about them (too gooey, too hard, too bland). THIS specific bakery is amazing every single time. And they're big! For only $3!

You have not tried every chocolate chip cookie everywhere. And the repeated “And they’re big! For only $3!” sounds like an annoying sakes pitch. Are you part of the Big Bakery lobby or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think if you find a small business that makes something perfectly, it's actually silly to try and compete with it at home. We're not taking about a large sum of money. A good fresh chocolate chip cookie as good as they make it should probably be $5.

LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Sorry, just venting. I just have no idea how chocolate chip cookies can come out different every time we try to bake them at home. It's not that they're awful, it's just they're sort of mediocre compared to theirs. I'm just going to use up these chips and never try cookies again. Going to support the bakery instead moving forward.

You need a better recipe or may need better tools. Baking is a science. There are so many things that can go wrong, especially around the incorporation of the fat and heat. This will heavily impact the crumb and flavor of the cookie.

But if you don’t mind spending that much for cookies, I see no reason not to just buy them. If you really wanted to make them at home, I could suggest some recipes snd strategies.

I am a good cook. But baking cookies is too hit or miss. It's just not worth it anymore. I give up.

How does this personal “revelation” necessitate a thread, again?

I wonder if OP is actual a bakery owner trying to drum up business.

Haha. I actually refuse to name the bakery because then they would sell out earlier than they already do. And justifiably raise the prices from $3 to $5!

If you’re really not a bakery owner, then you’re a deeply weird person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t like most of those giant bakery cookies. Can’t they just be normal sized?

I tend to agree but these are in-between the too large ones (which are visually unappealing) and regular sized. They're perf.

Wow, it would take my 14-year-old about 10 minutes to come up with a recipe to yield a good-quality homemade cookie that size. She wouldn’t call them “perf,” though, she’s too mature for that. We’d have fun baking them, too, because we are good bakers and we don’t balk at kitchen clean-up.

I picture OP with flour all over her face, sweating and wringing her hands in the kitchen, as an infomercial announcer asks, “Has THIS ever happened to YOU?” Close-up on OP as she cries, “There’s GOT to be a better WAY!”

There is!

Step 1: Call bakery.
Step 2: "Hi! Have you sold out of chocolate chip cookies? No? Maybe I reserve 4 of them. I'll be right over."
Step 3: Pay $12.

Seriously, what is wrong with you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why so much defensiveness and insults for this post. Buying cookies is great for some people; for others, baking is better. For still others, it will vary from time to time. I cannot understand why OP started this thread or why some people responded so harshly. Can’t we all just get along?

No, OP was basically taking shots at anyone foolish enough to bake at home, going on and on about how superior it is to buy from a bakery. Did you not clock the “gluttonous” comment, as if anyone who bakes two dozen cookies is morally inferior to someone who buys four cookies? Yes, we’re all eating two dozen cookies in one sitting, OP.

And her completely bizarre and repetitive obsession about how a single cookie should be “$3! No, $4! No, $5!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get your point Op. But you don’t know the ingredients “your bakery” is using. They may be using cheap bleached flour and shorting or a mixture of cheap butter and shortening. Probably a lesser quality chocolate too. They just taste good bc they hit the fat/sugar craving and you aren’t doing any work.

But let’s given them some credit and assume they are using European butter, King Arthur flour and good quality chocolate. You only have 1 cookie each and then done. Maybe that is what your prefer? But I have three kids. I buy the best ingredients and when I make cookies, I end up with at least 24. The kids can have a couple each, take one in their lunch, or I can freeze half for later. It just makes more sense to bake myself

The bakery makes them. And they are using great butter (I feigned an allergy and confirmed) and the chocolate is good because I can isolate and taste the chunks of it. A recipe at home doesn't make 24 of the size I can buy for $3, it makes 12 at that size. And our family doesn't need or want 12. So if we freeze 8 of them, I guess we have 8 mediocre thawed out cookies for the next two weeks, which nobody is very enthused about. I'd rather just buy the perfect fresh professional ones for $12 each time we all crave one. That's $36. Versus around $12 or so for the 12 from our mediocre homemade batch. $24 premium in a month to avoid all cookie cleanup, wasted time, risk, eat the best cookies, and support a small local business. Seems to be a no-brainer to me. ymmv

Wow. Just wow. Go touch grass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a good number of cookies that are pretty hard to find anywhere but aren't that hard to make. The local bakery doesn't make my grandma's chocolate cherry cookies. If I want those I have to make them myself.

If you don't want to bake that's totally fine, of course.

Um, do you think grandma would mind if some home bakers on the internet tried her recipe?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a really odd post. I have no problems with someone buying the cookies/baked goods at a bakery. I love a good bakery as much as the next person. But, to say makes such a broad, sweeping generalization that it's better to buy cookies at the bakery, is just wrong. Sure, it's convenient and you sometimes get specialty cookies that aren't easy to make at home. But, it's also more expensive and a lot of pleasure and rituals can surround the baking of cookies.

I just did a calculation of what a base sugar cookie recipe would cost me - less than $6 for a batch without chocolate chips. You don't have to even use 'good butter'. I didn't include the cost of using the oven because it's just pennies. Nor did I include the cost of mortgage or utensils because those are sunk costs - I'd pay for them whether I made cookies or not. I also didn't include the cost of my time because it wouldn't take me any longer to bake cookies than to run to the store to get them and I'm also avoiding the cost of gas.

^^PP here. I calculated the costs using the prices on Costco's website. I didn't include the cost of salt/soda because the amounts are so small and cheap. I also use the imitation vanilla recommended by America's Test Kitchen and it's just as cheap. It's only pennies that are missing from here and not worth wasting my time to calculate.
1.17 Eggs
0.20 flour
1.67 sugar
2.25 butter
5.28 Total

Um, the good dark or semi sweet chocolate chips?

As noted, the cost above is a base sugar cookie recipe. A bag of Ghirardelli Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips is $3.99 at Wegmans. A bag of Toll House is $2.50. So, a batch of chocolate chip cookies with 'good' chocolate chips is still less than $10. If you were to buy chocolate chips in bulk or with coupons, it'd be a bit cheaper.

There's also risk involved with at-home cookies. No risk involved buying at bakery you're a repeat customer at.

Yes ... no risk at all buying a product made at a commercial outlet, as that "never" goes the wrong way, does it?

Contamination doesn't occur often at commercial bakeries, that's true. In the US, they are pretty safe to buy from. But you know where contamination occurs even less frequently? My own kitchen.

One time in years I had a bad item at a bakery. They immediately offered to issue me a refund or replace the item on my next visit. When you screw up baking at home, it's money down the drain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am good at baking and make really good cookies. And I can make them for a lot less than $3 a cookie, even with inflation costs of groceries.

It sounds like you just aren’t very good at baking and don’t like it, which is fine. But other people feel differently.

Sure, a (potentially mediocre) home recipe produces more than 4 cookies, but what family needs a dozen+ cookies? Diminishing returns, you know. And gluttonous. Between the potential for mediocre cookies and too many sweets and all the time and cleanup, wiser to just go buy 4 really spectacular cookies. Support a local business, too.

NP. Ohhh you’re a troll. Got it.

You weirdos with your troll snark need to go for a walk and breathe fresh air. I’m sorry I don’t want my family wolfing down dozens of cookies. Or even want the mere temptation of them in our freezer (as if frozen and thawed cooked cookies are ever good anyways). It’s just pure gluttony.

So troll or eating disorder (or both). Thanks for the update.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bought cookies at the bakery today and when I nibbled on one while waiting in the school pickup line, they were surprisingly burnt. Exterior was too dark brown but not an obvious burnt appearance, so I can see how it could slip by. I called the bakery. They looked, acknowledged they found the overcooked batch, apologized, and said free next time I’m in. Had I burnt a batch at home they’d go in the trash and I’d be out all the costs. Buying at the bakery has no risks!

You are crazypants. Seriously. Talk to someone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a good number of cookies that are pretty hard to find anywhere but aren't that hard to make. The local bakery doesn't make my grandma's chocolate cherry cookies. If I want those I have to make them myself.

If you don't want to bake that's totally fine, of course.

Um, do you think grandma would mind if some home bakers on the internet tried her recipe?

+1 I'd love to try making Gma's chocolate cherry cookies!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bought cookies at the bakery today and when I nibbled on one while waiting in the school pickup line, they were surprisingly burnt. Exterior was too dark brown but not an obvious burnt appearance, so I can see how it could slip by. I called the bakery. They looked, acknowledged they found the overcooked batch, apologized, and said free next time I’m in. Had I burnt a batch at home they’d go in the trash and I’d be out all the costs. Buying at the bakery has no risks!

Or you could, you know, not burn them at home if you were better at all this. I've never burned a batch of cookies myself.

And of course "no risks" means "no risks," and that isn't really true, is it?